The Atlas

WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

The long weary pushbroom whose dark bristles were as kinky as pubic hairs dragged itself attached to a man's ami and hand. It was very late. Two children sat drinking sodas and playing with straws and crying out: What's your name? — When the man's toil brought him near enough, they shouted their question at him in shrill excited voices. — Get Up Mess is my name, the man responded. That's what they call me. You make a mess and they call me get up mess. — The next man sat chewing gum and resting on the sides of his feet. — What's your name? called the little ones. — Sir, the man replied, his eyes shining like the cross on the chain around his neck.

Now it was ten-o'-clock in this tiled cave like an immense toilet, and the buses pulsed outside, and now it was eleven-o'-clock, and then it was midnight. The two children snored with their mouths open. Their mother's eyes closed slowly, and then a security guard came and shook her shoulder. The guard left the children alone. The buses all seemed to be either absent, gone, or out of sight. Half-asleep people queued or leaned. Only the escalators moved, winding remorselessly up and down like the treads of some monstrous tank turned turtle. A man fell asleep on the silver coast between escalators.

Not tonight, a ticket agent was saying to a sad man. Not unless you want to sleep in the terminal in Hartford.

Finally light burst out at the side of a bus outside, and it sped away. Then in the darkness another bus came speeding, and he who waited and watched knew that she was on it, but then it kept speeding and was gone. A man sagged against the wall, curling his fingers against the side of his head, and slept.

Then suddenly another long bus angled in and upflung its sidehatch to unchoke itself of suitcases which were taken like medicine into the hands of people who then gave themselves to the emptiness between escalator railings and were accordingly transfigured, decapitated, unbreasted, waistcut, kneesplit, anklesliced and then gone, leaving not even the soles of their shoes behind.

Another bus swam rapidly by, so that his heart rose and fell again.

He saw a sleeping woman who resembled her blurrily. The security guard shook her, and she woke and looked into his eyes.

What's your name? he said on impulse.

Sweetheart. You wanna date? What's your name?

Gonorrhea, he said.

You sound like my type, the woman laughed. Let's go.

The security guard was still there, so he said: And what's your name, sir?

Fuck You, said the security guard.

Oh, said the woman. I guess he's my type, too. At least that's what all the men do to me.

He took her hand and they went out. — What's your name? he said to the taxi driver.

Go To Hell, the driver said, and he stepped on the gas and sped them straight there. .